Heart of Fire
by RisingPhoenix56
Summary: Dire conditions call for strictly enforced protocol. Wyvern rider Ruggar knew his place in the Mars tribe. Soldier for the tribe. Defend its people. Obey Command—doing otherwise would anger the gods of the desert and bring down the wrath of the Manticore. He wasn't so set in his ways when an amnesiac woman called Raia stumbled into his life. Scorched Earth fic.
1. Chapter 1

"Do you see them anywhere?" Ruggar heard his wingman call as he felt a familiar lurch in his stomach. It had taken him ages of flying Ignis to get used to the feeling whenever the fire wyvern beat his wings. Ignis was a stellar flyer—able to outmaneuver even enemy argents if he put his mind to it—but they didn't need to worry about such birds this far into the desert's dunes.

"Nothing yet." Ruggar called back, slowing to a stop in order to scan the sloping dunes below. The earth was dotted with little specks of rugged life—Ruggar could make out the exoskeletons of manti and arthropleura with the occasional flock of vultures, but nothing that he was looking for. He glanced back up towards the air to find a familiar poison wyvern closing in and coming to a stop just before Ignis.

"I'm coming up blank too." Ruggar's wingman didn't have to shout so loud once they were wyvern-to-wyvern. "And we've been at this all morning. Honestly I don't know why Command couldn't send the argents. Using two wyverns for a simple search-and-rescue is just overkill. Cass wanted to go see what the traveling merchants had in stock, but Command just _had_ to call me away."

"Calm down, Salamis." Ruggar's voice was turning hoarse from spending the morning in the scorching sun. He reached for his canteen and took a short drink, taking extra care to save the sacred liquid. "Command has its reasons. We're soldiers of the tribe, not politicians. Our place is to follow orders—not make them." But his wingman Salamis did have a point. Riders of the wyvern brigade—Ruggar and Salamis included—were usually saved for dire conditions on the battlefield. Sending not one but two out for a low-caliber mission was…peculiar. Ruggar wondered just how high value this missing person was. But Ruggar made it his place not to question Command. The tribe had grown into the beginnings of a city-state, and with all the population growth he had to assume Command was acting with everyone's best intentions. Salamis' wyvern Venom let out a low rumble that awoke Ruggar from his reverie. The fire rider turned his gaze back to the searing desert below to find a misshapen black figure poking out of the dunes.

"Hey, do you see that over there?" Ruggar called to his wingman. Salamis' sandy hair whipped in the wind as he followed Ruggar's pointing finger. The poison rider looked back at his wingman and they each gave a silent nod. It was a simple communication that no longer needed to be vocalized between two veteran soldiers: engage. Ruggar dug his toes into Ignis' back, asking for a dive. Ignis gave a roar as his red wings folded slightly and he nearly plummeted to the sands below. Salamis wasn't far behind—Ruggar could hear heavy wings flapping as the poison rider landed behind him. The sand dune shook as the two legendary beasts thundered onto the ground. Ruggar peered over the spikes on Ignis' back and at the collapsed morellatops. The desert wind had coated the majority of the animal in sand so that its entire right flank was embedded into the dunes. The other half of its body was curled around a clump of clothing. Ruggar

could only assume the site was the remains of the missing merchant.

Ruggar swung himself off Ignis' back and planted his feet onto the dusty sand. He began walking toward the figure when he felt an unusual lurch in the ground. He looked back at Venom to see if his wingmate had caused it, but the poison wyvern was obliviously looking back at him with no intention of budging. Ruggar's confusion gave way to dread as the dunes shook more.

And more.

And more.

Ruggar barely had time to leap back onto his wyvern when the colossus exploded out of the ground, showering its previous victims with a new coating of sand. Its mess of appendages curled in anticipation of its next meal.

"Deathworm!" Salamis shouted over the monster's animalistic clicking. "Run!" Ruggar didn't need to be told twice. Ignis leapt into the air as his wings narrowly missed a bite from the worm's maw. Ruggar let Ignis fly forward for a bit before turning him around for an attack run—he knew Salamis would be keeping the worm busy while Ignis was fleeing. Wyvern riders fought in pairs and took turns engaging the threat while the other was busy reorienting their wyvern. Ruggar steered back onto a direct course to the deathworm and commanded the wyvern to attack. A stream of fire plumed out of Ignis' mouth and the deathworm was drenched in fire within seconds. The fire wyvern added a passing bite at the worm's head while Salamis pulled back. It only took a few more passes for the deathworm to meet its end. The worm let out one last cry before its body collapsed to the ground.

Ruggar landed Ignis not far from the wreckage. The deathworm was a piece of work—claw marks, acid sores and burns now covered the once-hardened creature. Deathworms were easily one of the most dangerous creatures in the desert—battling one was a harrowing experience that few survive, even atop a wyvern. The wyverns made short work of processing the carcass into meat for the tribe while Ruggar went to inspect the fallen merchant. He had assumed that his mission of returning the individual alive had failed.

Ruggar walked up to the morellatops and brushed away the sand covering the merchant beneath. He had expected the sands to be stained with red, but there was no blood to be found. Curious, Ruggar respectfully tugged the merchant out of the dunes to get a better look. It was a woman, wrapped in coarse cloth rather than the popular desert armor Ruggar and most other tribe mates wore. Her hair was black and unusually long for a human on the ARK. And there were absolutely no injuries. Baffled, Ruggar put two fingers to her corroded artery to check for a pulse.

And he found one.

The wyvern rider was baffled. This woman was hardly a few feet from the deathworm's nest, and it didn't bother to eat her. That was unheard of. Deathworms were notoriously territorial, and more than willing to pounce on prey—especially if it was incapacitated. The morellatops was done for—the deathworm apparently had no qualms eating _it_ , but for some reason it left the woman alone. Ruggar briefly wondered if he should leave her alone in case she brought some sort of curse to the village, but he loaded her onto Ignis anyway. A mission was a mission—he was instructed with the safe return of the missing merchant. He'd let the elders of Command decide what to do with her.

* * *

 **Hey-o! RisingPhoenix56 here. First off, thanks for reading through the chapter (unless you just skipped down to here, in which case get back up to the top of the page). This fic is actually a writing exercise rather than the deliberate concepts I usually post. I was playing around with a new writing style and I kinda liked the premise that was coming out. So I decided to just screw it and upload anyways. I've got a main idea for this fic, but the major plotline hasn't been decided yet.**

 **I also haven't decided if I'm going to continue this. That decision will probably depend on how well this first chapter is received and/or if I want to write any more. So if you want me to continue this, let me know in a PM or something and I'll add it to my update list.**

 **I also brushed off my old Twitter page where I'll start posting progress on upcoming updates to my stories. You can follow me 56RisingPhoenix**


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn't a long ride back to the village—with Ignis flying at full speed the ride didn't last more than an hour. Ruggar soon saw the familiar walls of the city. The capital of the Mars tribe was situated in the canyons, surrounded by natural bridges and sloping ledges. It was one of the most defensible sites in the desert—the canyons held a lake and was isolated from the harsh wilds with natural walls. The tribe had reinforced those natural defenses by building adobe walls up to the bridges and placing sentry stations on top, manned by golem wranglers. Automatic turrets whirred to life to scan the two incoming wyvern riders. Ruggar and Salamis' ID numbers were checked against the tribal database and once they were cleared the turrets returned to standby mode. Salamis settled Venom into the wyvern pens while Ruggar landed Ignis outside the infirmary. Sensors on the infirmary's landing pad alerted the medics to their guest and Ruggar was greeted with a stretcher. The veteran soldier eased the woman he found off of his wyvern and onto the stretcher and watched as they wheeled her into the building.

Figuring there was nothing else he needed to do there, Ruggar whistled for Ignis to follow and led him back into the wyvern pens. Salamis was long gone by then—likely checking the main square in the hopes that he didn't _entirely_ miss the trader's visit. Ignis was quick to hop into the pens and return to his own kind. The tribe didn't have too many wyverns to begin with—only two of each kind—since wyverns were dangerous to collect and even more dangerous to raise. Ignis turned back around to his master and looked at him with a pant that made it seem like he was smiling. Ruggar let a rare smirk show on his face. He thought Ignis looked like a happy puppy whenever he did that. Knowing exactly what the fire wyvern was looking for, Ruggar walked over to the feeding trough and pulled out a slab of raw meat. He pulled his arm back and flung it full force toward Ignis. The fire wyvern leapt off of the ground and caught it midair, munching on his snack as he went back to socializing with the other wyverns.

"It's always good to see a rider with such a strong understanding of his mount." A voice called behind Ruggar. The rider turned around to see his superior, Shyomi, standing behind him. Her hardened desert armor shone like a lightning wyvern on fire in the setting sun. It's customary for wyvern riders to dye their armor according to the color scheme of their mounts, so it's harder for enemy snipers to differentiate rider from mount. Ruggar's own gear was black with red highlights to complement Ignis. Wyvern Brigade Captain Shyomi walked up to the edge of the pen next to Ruggar as her lightning wyvern Elecktryia walked up to the side of the pen to greet her.

"I know wyverns are a bit of a special case," Shyomi said as she gave Elecktryia a scratch under her chin. "But I know too many other riders look at their mounts as only war weapons, and then complain why their commands are never obeyed. I'm glad you are not one of them."

"Thank you, ma'am." Ruggar replied sharply. He had nothing but respect for Shyomi. After all, she was one of the tribe's heroes. She once fought off an entire enemy ambush on some of the tribe's workers with nothing but her wyvern and her handgun by funneling them through the dusty ravines northeast of the red obelisk. She had little supplies—like water and ammo—to last the onslaught, not to mention nowhere near enough space to maneuver Elecktryia. But she prevailed without losing any of the workers—and such shows of strength and resilience get one far in the desert.

"How was the mission?" Shyomi asked. Ruggar opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the sound of the city's bell tower chiming. The city's jerboas must have sniffed out an incoming sandstorm.

"Come." Shyomi gestured for him to follow. "We can talk in the war room while we wait out the storm."

The war room of the Mars tribe was an attachment off of city hall at the base of the lake at the center of the settlement. Trophies of tyrannosaurus arms, wild argent talons, and the occasional wyvern talon served as decorations on the walls. A wardrum stood at each of the four corners for visual effect. A long wooden table sat at the center of the room with a war map hanging on the nearby wall.

"All right." Shyomi began as she leaned on the table. "Walk me through what happened." Ruggar explained the events of the mission while especially noting the deathworm's odd behavior around the woman.

"That is definitely something I hadn't heard of before." Shyomi said as she grabbed the war room's radio and started paging the infirmary. "The deathworm attacked you just fine, so it wasn't sick or injured. I really wonder if it had something to do with that woman."

"Do you think she tamed it, ma'am?" Ruggar asked. It was a bit of a ridiculous question, since anyone who has ever tried to tame a deathworm has ended up killed—but then again this was a bit of a ridiculous situation.

"No, you said it killed that morellatops." Shyomi replied. "That wouldn't have happened if she tamed it." The infirmary responded, however the signal was weak due to the sandstorm outside. They reported the woman wasn't awake yet, but they ran the survival ID on her implant and she does not belong to any known tribe—nor any nomadic caravan.

"I don't like this." A voice called from behind the door to city hall. It slammed open to reveal Farwinter, the army general of the Mars tribe. He was never really well liked due to his skeptical nature and harsh tactics, but everyone viewed such behavior was a necessity in the desert so others could have the luxury of a comfortable life. Both Ruggar and Shyomi instantly saluted as he walked into the war room. "I got a report from Salamis." Farwinter continued. "Why are we bringing someone who even a _deathworm_ wouldn't touch within our walls? And her ID doesn't check out? I want her out of this city the moment she's awake and ready."

"You're the one who told me to send my men to retrieve her, sir." Shyomi seemed a little frustrated, but was careful not to show too much of it in her voice.

"The Chief has been talking to his ovi." Farwinter gave an annoyed shrug. "I had to follow my own orders, however absurd they were." Ruggar gave a slight nod. The Chief of the tribe held on to the ages old religion of worshipping the gods of the obelisks. Not everyone agrees with the religion—General Farwinter was a good example—but the general majority of the tribe did. The religion also believed that the wild sheep that appear near the obelisks had the ability to hear the gods, and as such were revered as great oracles. The tribe had a small herd for sacrificial slaughter and prophetic guidance that only the Chief was allowed to handle. An ovis must have predicted the woman's arrival and so the Chief must have commanded General Farwinter to retrieve her. The war room's pinging radio brought Ruggar out of his thoughts. Captain Shyomi pressed the talk button.

"Go ahead." She said.

"Captain!" It was one of the medics at the infirmary. "She's awake."

* * *

 **I'm back! So as you can see I decided to continue! Thank you to everyone who reviewed, followed, favorite, and the like. So I hadn't touched my copy of ARK since the first chapter went up until like last week, and holy smokes did I miss a lot of updates. First I had to sit through some 150 gigabytes worth of updates (with spotty Internet connection), then I opened it up to what felt like hundreds of new dinos with new tools and basically new everything. These updates came with new canon and lore that completely nullified my original plot for this story. So I've been spending a ton of time redoing all my research on Scorched Earth and acclimating to the new feel of the game's atmosphere for this fic. I** _ **think**_ **I have a new plot that I can run with now, but I won't be surprised if Wildcard sends out new lore by the time I'm done writing the fic.**

 **ARK's storyline got a whole lot more interesting, but for now enjoy the new chapter!**

 **~RisingPhoenix56**


End file.
